There have been many basic eras in Japan all the way from the early BC years. These eras are: JÔmon Period: 10,000-300 B.C., Yayoi Period: 300 B.C.-200 B.C, Tomb Period: 250-500 AD, Asuka Period: 500-710, (all previous dates are estimates) Nara Period: 710-784, Heian Period: 794-1191, Kamakura Period: 1192-1333, Muromachi Period: 1334-1573 (A.K.A. Ashikaga Period), Tokugawa Period: 1603-1867 (A.K.A. Edo Period), Meiji Period 1867-1912, TaishÔ Period 1912-1926, ShÔwa Period 1926-1989 and finally the Heisei Period 1989-present.
             Japan is a highly urbanized nation that became industrialized much faster than most Asian nations, including China, as well as most eastern European nations and some western European nations. The largest city is Tokyo, formerly known as Edo, and the second largest city is Osaka, about 40 miles away from the capital. Nagasaki, on the south island is the biggest port for trade with China.
             Japan is viewed as a highly interesting and sometimes mysterious country by the rest of the western world. Orientalist values, thought sometimes to be aged and out of date, still have deep roots in the Japanese culture and government. The nation is viewed as an antique society having still westernized to compete with the rest of the world in all aspects of life.
             Japan is one of, if not the, most competitive trading nation with the United States due to the variety of industry and first world jobs that go on their. "At some deep level, there is a desire for Japan to be quaint, traditional, and exotic, like a proper "Asiatic" country. Yet Japan has led the world in high-tech electronics and many other realms of "modern" life for so long that its modernity can not longer be written off as freakish imitation in the manner of the Eisenhower administration" says professor Gregory Smits.
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